


Casting a Circle

by JaneDavitt



Category: Original Work
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Paranormal, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:39:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1720205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/pseuds/JaneDavitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short story by Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow featuring Hallister and Magnus, two characters from 'Killing Time', an m/m urban fantasy by Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow, published by Loose Id. Set in the past and immediately after Magnus is injured in the book.<br/>Many thanks to our editor Serena for beta reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Casting a Circle

"Thanks," Hallister said as Kaelan paused in the doorway to Magnus's bedroom. There was no way he'd have been able to get Magnus up the stairs on his own, even with Magnus weighing at least twenty pounds less than he had years ago. He'd always had a crazy-fast metabolism, like most casters, and he'd never had the appetite to keep up with it, but even then he'd never been this thin.

"No problem." Kaelan was young and too pretty for Hallister's taste—Hallister preferred the rugged type, like Magnus—but he seemed like a good kid, and possessed of enough magical talent for three casters. "We'll try to get things straightened up down there before we go."

"Okay." Hallister didn't thank him. None of this was his doing, and the condition of Magnus's property didn't matter to him.

After Kaelan went downstairs, Hallister checked out Magnus's bedroom, then put up cursory shields around the whole building. They wouldn't do the job the way Magnus's would have, but they were better than nothing. Magnus could replace them after he'd shaken off the effects of crashing, which probably wouldn't be anytime soon if Hallister's years of experience were any indication.

He heard the others talking on the first floor, but he ignored them, studying Magnus's bloodied face for a long moment. Then he sighed and went to the bathroom for a washcloth, which he held under the faucet before returning to sit on the side of the bed to clean the already drying blood from Magnus's skin. Magnus slept through the whole process, limp, dead to the world.

It unnerved him more than he cared to admit, seeing Magnus this way. Every memory he had of the man included an awareness of strength bolstered by resilience, and this diminished Magnus roused anger in him that he fought to control. Being reminded of his mortality was bad enough. When it came through an injured Magnus, it was insupportable. With no one to hurt and punish, he settled in a chair and conjured a spark, holding it in his palm until his skin glowed red, then tossing it high and catching it in his other hand to repeat the process. Hurting himself was pointless and deeply stupid, but the pain gave the chaos of his thoughts a focal point.

Magnus had gray streaks in his hair. When had they gotten old? Older, he corrected himself. They weren't ancient yet. Proof lay in his body's instinctive reaction to the sound of Magnus's voice. He'd responded to it on a primal level, breath quickening, cock hardening, a disgracefully adolescent burst of arousal destroying his composure. Only Magnus affected him that strongly. It'd been why he loved him and why he'd fought that love for so long before surrendering.

And why, when their relationship ended in bitterness and frustration, Hallister had gone far away from everywhere that reminded him of Magnus, finding a small village in Iceland and holing up there for close to three years. Eventually, he'd admitted it was too isolated even for him, at which point he'd relented and moved to Reykjavik, but for a time he'd avoided people and settled solidly into depression.

On the bed, Magnus stirred. Surprising. Hallister extinguished his spark and went over to the bed again. Magnus muttered something unintelligible and reached up to touch the cut on his face, which had stopped bleeding.

Hallister knocked his hand away gently. "Leave that be."

"Joely," Magnus said. He opened his eyes and looked, not at Hallister, but up at the ceiling, his expression as bleak as Hallister had ever seen it.

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"That’s not like you. Pity for the stupid was never your style."

The gibe stung as fiercely as the spark, though it was hard to deny the truth of it. "Then I must’ve rubbed off on you, because calling the girl stupid isn’t particularly kind either."

And there they were, reduced to playground taunts in the space of a few sentences.

Magnus turned his head, fixing him with a stare, eyes bloodshot but clearing. If he noticed the subtle trickle of healing energy Hallister fed him, he didn’t comment, and more importantly as far as Hallister was concerned, he didn’t slam a shield in place to block it. It wasn’t even needed; Magnus could heal himself, but Hallister got a certain pleasure from being part of Magnus’s recovery. His power entwined with Magnus’s physical form reminded him of the time when a thread of connection ran between them no matter how far apart they’d been, unbreakable, strong as time and death.

Or, as it turned out, as easy to snap as a cotton thread dangling from a loose button.

"She looked to evil, not me, for help with a trivial problem. Endangered the world, if what those two casters say is true, and there’s no reason to doubt it." Magnus tightened his lips into an unforgiving line, mostly, Hallister suspected, to keep them from trembling. "Stupid doesn’t come close."

"Yes, you're right. She did those things. But if you’re trying to fool me into thinking you blame her and not yourself, you’re doing a terrible job."

"I don't have the energy to argue with you." Magnus closed his eyes and Hallister waited, convinced there would be more. After half a minute or so, Magnus's eyes opened again. They were unfocused, glassy; he was closer to asleep than awake.

"Hey," Hallister said. "Sleep, all right? We can talk later."

"Ah, but will you still be here?" Magnus sounded far away, his voice thready.

Hallister sighed. It wasn't that he planned to take off. It was more that he tried not to plan anything. Life was unpredictable. Anything could happen, and probably would; trying to create an outline for what would come next was a fool's errand. 

But this was Magnus he was talking to.

"I'll be here," he promised. He reached out and smoothed his thumb over Magnus's brow, soothing the stress lines there with a gentle touch. "Sleep now."

Gratifying to have Magnus sigh out a long breath and slip under as if Hallister’s wish was his command. And completely unlike the man, so maybe it was cause for concern, not congratulation.

"You never did anything the way I wanted," he murmured. "Always so ready to argue, playing the role of champion to the mundanes. I told you they were trouble and see? I was right. And I haven’t said so, which makes me the better man. Indisputably."

Magnus stirred, head turning, as if even exhausted and asleep, that was too ridiculous a notion for him to accept, and Hallister rolled his eyes. "Fine. I’m—what did you call me once? Oh yes…"

***

"An arrogant, egotistical asshole who thinks casting a portal makes him God!" Magnus thrust his hand through his thick brown hair until it stood on end, face animated, flushed with annoyance Hallister found amusing. "We can travel around the world. Big deal. So can anyone with the cash for a plane ticket. We get there faster, that’s all. We’re not superior to the rest of humanity. We just have a gift, a responsibility, if you like."

"I don’t like," Hallister broke in to say. "What did I do to set you off this time?"

By way of answering, Magnus pointed at a bucket in the corner of their apartment filled with ice water and beer bottles.

"Oh. That."

Magnus’s voice was as chilly as the water. "When we run out of ice during a party and Simon offers to go to the store and get some, opening a portal to wherever it was you got the ice so you can make him look stupid when he comes back is childish and a misuse—"

"Heard it all before." Hallister smothered a yawn. It was two in the morning, he was buzzed from alcohol, and Simon deserved everything he got for flirting with Magnus as if the man was unattached and up for grabs. "And it’s Swiss ice, if you must know. I nearly got run over by an idiot skiing off-piste, but don’t offer to kiss the bruises better because they’re all on him. He, ah, took a slight detour into a tree."

There was a pause as Magnus absorbed his words. "Tell me you're joking."

"You want me to lie to you?" A pointless question Hallister knew the answer to; Magnus would be furious if he offered anything but the truth. Not that Hallister would. He was honest to a fault, the kind of man who not only lost friends because of his inability to tell little white lies for the sake of people's feelings, but who rarely made friends in the first place because of it. The apartment had been packed with people two hours before and the guests Hallister had invited numbered three.

"You know I don't. I want you to be concerned with the safety of someone else's skin besides your own."

"Oh, I am." Hallister moved closer and slid a hand around to the small of Magnus's back. "I spend a fair amount of time thinking about your skin, for example."

Magnus shoved at him ineffectually. "I'm not that easy to distract. Did you wait around to see if he was okay?"

"The skier?" Rolling his eyes, Hallister released Magnus and went over to grab another beer, even though he didn't really need it. He flicked the bottle cap off with a touch of magic and directed it to land back in the bucket. "He was fine."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's what's important." Hallister drank some beer and wandered over near Magnus again. If Magnus was a flame, Hallister was the moth drawn to him, helpless against his brightness. "He wasn't hurt. He didn't have any more right to be there than I did. It could as easily have been a deer or a bear that startled him."

"But it wasn't. It was you." Magnus's anger was fading, though. Hallister knew him so well he practically saw it draining from him.

He inched closer and toyed with the top button Magnus had fastened. "It's always me." Leaning in, he ran his tongue along the sensitive edge of Magnus's ear. "Let's go to bed."

"I'm still angry with you," Magnus said.

"Hm. I'll have to find some way to apologize." With one hand, Hallister unbuttoned Magnus's shirt—it was either that or put his beer down—and slid his fingertips down Magnus's chest. Magnus shivered. "Cold?" The glass beer bottle was colder than Hallister's fingers, so he pressed it to Magnus's right nipple, watching as the flesh tightened and hardened in response.

The shiver upgraded to a shudder, one of pleasure. Hallister could tell the difference and so, from the rueful glance he got, could Magnus.

Battle won and to the victor the spoils. In this case a deliciously sulky Magnus, pretending disinterest, faking noncompliance, so every step involved in getting them naked and on the bed was a struggle without substance.

"You’re a bad man," Magnus said, panting from the brief, intense tussle that left him on his back, caged by Hallister’s body. "I’m not sure you deserve me."

"Well, we can agree to differ on that." Hallister drew his finger from Magnus’s right nipple to his left, chaining them with power, conjuring an invisible line of force. Invisible to the eye, anyway; he saw it well enough with a caster’s vision, a twisting glimmer of silver shot through with green. He hooked his finger under it and tugged upward, relishing Magnus’s helpless groan. "I deserve the best, and that reduces my choice of partner somewhat. To one person, in fact, and that’s you. Aren’t you lucky?"

"Your compliments never come without a sting in the tail." Magnus grinned, a glint in his eyes warning Hallister a fraction too late. The slap of power his ass received stung bright as Magnus’s smile, and as he delivered it, Magnus surged up, capturing Hallister’s face between his palms and fastening his mouth to Hallister’s in an avid, bruising kiss.

Hallister was on top, and that fact combined with the ten pounds he had on Magnus—ten pounds he worked hard for on a daily basis, eating at least five thousand calories more than any medical chart said he should—meant Hallister didn't struggle to keep Magnus pinned to the bed. "Want to fuck me?" he asked, then made it hard for Magnus to answer by biting his lower lip.

Magnus growled and lifted his hips, setting off a chain reaction he must have anticipated as Hallister ground down against him, reveling in the rub of Magnus's erection against his. He could come like this, bare skin stroking across his exquisitely sensitive prick, Magnus's mouth on his own. When Magnus pushed at him with one hand, trying to get him to roll to the side, Hallister shook his head and planted both hands on the mattress.

"No. Like this." Hallister moved to straddle Magnus's waist, putting himself in position for what he craved, the solid thrust of Magnus's cock inside him. "Want to?"

Clutching at his hips, Magnus nodded. "You know I do."

They didn't need lube. It was something they'd figured out months into their relationship, before they'd even admitted it was a relationship and not friendly fucking. Hallister had cursed the hundreds of times they'd fumbled with condoms and slick unnecessarily. Magnus had discovered the possibilities of using a thin trace of power as lube, bending Hallister over the kitchen counter and sliding into him without warning. Hallister still remembered the shock and thrill of that night. He'd come so hard he would have collapsed to the floor if Magnus hadn't still been fucking him.

Magic made that first penetration a slick, swift slide, but if the dry burn became a flush of warmth, the stretch was still there and Hallister gloried in the sensation. Magnus deep inside him, their bodies joined in the most intimate of ways, power suffusing the surrounding air until every inch of exposed skin tingled; it was special. If he’d been inclined to pity mundanes, it would be for their inability to experience this. Oh, he was sure they had fun, but not like this. Nothing like this.

He rode Magnus, rocking his hips leisurely until Magnus growled, reaching for Hallister’s cock with his hand as well as a hot lick of power, the twin stimuli overwhelming. With an unrepentant smile, he increased the tempo from a trot to a gallop, murmuring "Giddyap" under his breath.

Then, for the longest time, nothing existed but Magnus, arching beneath him, expression wild, bewildered, as if desire had stripped him of a sense of self, leaving behind nothing but an aching need to slake his arousal.

Hallister held back, watching Magnus with a flicker of shame he pushed aside. He was no voyeur. The ecstasy contorting Magnus’s good-looking face into an erotic mask was his doing and he was part of it, not an onlooker.

Didn't change the fact he never really believed, deep down, Magnus belonged to him. He might belong to Magnus, but the other way around? Never.

"Stop," Magnus gasped, and Hallister managed to stop moving despite the difficulty of doing so this close to the edge. "No, not that. Whatever it is you're thinking."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" Concentrating was impossible with Magnus's fingers wrapped around him, stroking him in exactly the right way.

"I don't. But I can tell it's nothing good, so stop." Magnus tightened his other hand on Hallister's hip and got his feet under him, braced on the bed so he could actually fuck Hallister, doing instead of being done to. God, it was perfect; Hallister had a hard time focusing his eyes when the rough shove of Magnus's prick against his prostate was so relentless.

"Gonna come," he managed.

"Me too. Good. Do it." Magnus didn't slow, but his breathing was harsh and Hallister would have known he was close from that alone.

Release brought a sense of loss. What he had with Magnus came with a built-in expiry date, he knew that. The signs were there to be read, and he couldn’t look away and pretend they didn’t exist for much longer. Disillusioned, disapproving of what he saw as arrogance and cold indifference toward the mundanes Hallister despised, rather than the only way to view them, Magnus would stop trying to change him and give up.

How many more times like this did he have?

The answer was always the same, no matter how often he did the math.

Not enough.

***

Out in the hallway, Hallister sensed the tingle of the tiny magical alarm he'd cast to let him know Magnus was awake. "Good timing," he said as he walked into the bedroom with a heavy tray balanced on one widespread palm.

"Feels like I was hit by a truck," Magnus grumbled.

"And like you haven't eaten in a week?" Hallister carefully set the tray down beside the extra pillow and sat. "It's a little after eight, by the way. I expected you up by six at the latest."

"I'm not as young as I used to be." Magnus didn't seem to have any intention of moving; Hallister patted his leg in the vicinity of his knee under the covers.

"Come on, sit up. You won't lose the dizziness until you get some calories into you." He'd experienced caster's crash hundreds of times himself. "I've got all your favorites here. Eggs, sausage, bacon, even that wheat-berry toast you used to be so obsessed with." He knew he didn't need to mention he'd portaled out to get the supplies; Magnus had to be aware of what food was in the house. Or, more accurately, what food wasn't in the house, since the cupboards had been close to bare except for dozens of boxes of tea and at least five jars of honey. No wonder Magnus was so thin.

Magnus picked up the fork with Hallister studiously ignoring the way it shook in his grasp. Magnus simply wasn’t allowed to be sick or die. This was a normal, expected consequence of casting, no more than that, and no cause for concern.

Hallister still dug his nails into his palm to keep himself from badgering Magnus to eat faster.

After Magnus cleared the plate, his hands no longer shook and his cheeks held some color. Hallister crashed hard and recovered quickly, but Magnus always struggled to regain his strength, as if he poured too much into his casting, leaving nothing in reserve.

Hallister had never come across an emergency more important than his own survival, but Magnus, bleeding heart that he was, saw the world as an endless series of opportunities to be a hero.

"You do realize how ridiculous it is to continue helping those young fools? You’re endangering yourself, and I won’t have it."

"It’s not your decision to make," Magnus said. "And you know perfectly well we have no choice."

"Don’t we? I doubt Jannes will come looking for us if we disappear. You can shut up shop and stay with me for a while." He sweetened the pot. "I’m translating a scroll with the potential to throw new light on Blacket’s Hypothesis. Your input would be helpful."

"The theoretical side of things was never my field," Magnus said. "I’d be interested in the scroll as an historical artifact, but Blacket was wildly optimistic in his claims. You can’t seriously think moonlight can be harnessed as a power source."

"Of course I can." There were always possibilities that hadn't been given serious enough consideration, and since he'd personally mastered some things believed impossible before he'd figured them out, he tried not to label anything "wildly optimistic." "Besides, you'd love Reykjavík. Total change of scenery. That's supposed to be helpful...under circumstances like these."

"I'm not sure there are any other circumstances like these." Magnus plucked at the bedcovers. "Not what's already happened, and not what Jannes has planned. I can't run away from this, and neither can you."

"Fuck you, Magnus," Hallister said. He stood up and grabbed the tray. "If you're going to throw your life away because of guilt over that stupid girl, then fine. Just don't expect me to stick around and watch."

His own hands were shaking as he stormed back to the kitchen, where he fumbled the plate into the cast-iron sink. It cracked in two as neatly as if he'd done it on purpose, and he stood there looking down at it. He should throw all the dishes into the sink, smashing them to splinters. He should portal out of there now and never look back.

With a sigh, he put the broken plate into the trash can and went to work neatening up the kitchen. He'd want lunch later in the day, after all, and he might want to cook rather than go out for something.

Magnus appeared in the doorway when he’d decided against cleaning the fridge. There was so little in it, what was the point?

With a dismissive flick of his hand, he said, "You can turn around and get back in bed."

"And you can stop clattering around and talk to me," Magnus retorted. "Who domesticated you anyway?"

Was that jealousy slicking the words green? Or was he reading too much into a casual comment? "Living by myself, I either tidy up from time to time or get buried under the dirty dishes and laundry."

"You always were the cat who walked alone."

"Not always the cat who sleeps alone." Hallister hated himself for saying it, but lying to Magnus was a betrayal of their relationship, such as it was. They’d gone from lovers to enemies to distant friendship in a slow, inevitable downward slide. He preferred the first state over the other two, and the second to the third when his mood was melodramatic. "I assume the same holds true for you?"

Magnus shrugged. "I’ve had more on my mind than sex."

"But after me, there were others?" Why he persisted in picking at this scab, he didn’t know.

"Yes," Magnus said, meeting his gaze. "There were. Of course there were. But they weren’t you. None of them— Oh, Netherhells take it! You’re a hard act to follow, and you know it, you smug, arrogant—" He swayed, grabbing at the countertop, pain twisting his face into a caricature of his normal appearance. "Hal!"

Hallister grabbed on to him and started hauling him toward the bedroom. "Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm the one who's smug and arrogant? You're such an asshole. I told you to go back to bed. But do you listen? No, of course not." He kept up his diatribe as he lowered Magnus onto the mattress and then tucked him under the covers no more tightly than was necessary. He'd have handcuffed him to the headboard if he had handcuffs. He was seriously considering acquiring some as he put his hands on his hips and looked down at Magnus's pale face. "You're an idiot."

"Yes." Magnus swallowed and gazed at him. His eyes were soft and gentle and somehow managed to drain the anger out of Hallister. "For more reasons than you know."

Sighing, Hallister sat down. "So tell me. I'm right here."

"That's what you'd like? A list of my shortcomings?"

"It'll make you feel better. Get it off your chest." Hallister wasn't sure why he was pushing the issue; he'd have told himself it was because he wanted the reminder Magnus wasn't perfect, but that would be a lie.

"Less shortcomings than a single regret." Magnus plucked at the cover, then smoothed it, his gaze never leaving Hallister, the pointless action belying his outward calm. "I let you walk out of my life."

"As I recall, you’re the one who left," Hallister reminded him through a constricted throat. The pain of waking to find the bed beside him empty, the apartment echoing with silence following an argument they’d capped with angry, close to violent sex had come later, when the numb disbelief wore off.

"We’d lost our way," Magnus said. "I blamed myself."

"Well, that was stupid of you."

"You could’ve ended up like Jannes."

"No, I bloody well could not!" Hallister let indignation wash away the regrets choking him. "He’s a mass-murdering nutcase. I hold we’re a step higher on the evolutionary chain than humanity. It doesn’t mean I think killing them is okay."

"There. That." Magnus's gesture was eloquently weary and final, the punctuation on a sentence long ago spoken. "To you, there's us and there's them. You can't see we're all the same."

"And you refuse to admit we're _not_."

It was infuriating Magnus wouldn't agree there was a fundamental difference between casters and the average person. He _had_ to see it; he might be stubborn and softhearted, but he wasn't a moron.

More importantly, it was infuriating he'd insist Hallister had anything in common with Jannes but casting. Hallister wasn't sure he had the energy to fight with him, though, not the way he might have under other circumstances.

"Do you really think I'm like him?" he asked quietly.

"Jannes?" Magnus shook his head; that was a relief. "No. But you might have been."

"You're wrong," Hallister said. "I can prove it. You left and I destroyed a few things here and there, but none of them were alive."

Unless blasting an oak tree to splinters counted. He’d cleared it of wildlife with the first slam of power, birds taking wing, squirrels scampering to safety. Looking back, it’d been a foolish, melodramatic display, but it’d released a small part of his anguish. And if Magnus had died today, he would’ve needed to level a forest to get the same effect.

"If we’d stayed together then, we’d have destroyed each other."

"Probably would’ve gotten sticky," Hallister admitted. "So what made you look me up again a few years back?"

He’d been afraid to ask before. No, not afraid. Cautious in a way the years had taught him, worried one wrong word and Magnus would retreat again. They hadn’t met in person until this crisis, but Hallister had learned patience as well as caution. He’d been willing to wait.

"I missed you. Not as a lover, but as a friend."

Ouch. Maybe he should’ve left that question unasked. "And I missed both aspects of you."

Magnus smiled, and Hallister’s heartbeat quickened at the promise inherent in the curve of his lips, skin tingling as if he’d walked through a fading shield. "I didn’t say that was how I felt now."

"No? How do you feel now?" It was a risky question to ask and Hallister knew it; Magnus often preferred to skirt direct things like present-tense emotion unless he was drunk or worn out to the point of exhaustion, and he was neither at this moment.

He saw Magnus's hesitation, but he also knew the man well enough to recognize the second he tipped over from no to yes. "Right now, I'm glad I don't have to miss either aspect of you."

"You're surprised I showed up."

"After all these years? Of course I am." Magnus shook his head. "No, I'm not. I knew you'd come."

"How did you know?" Hallister pushed gently at Magnus's hip. "Move over. You've always been a terrible bed hog."

It took a bit of effort, but Magnus did move, making room for Hallister to stretch out next to him. "Hm. Well, you didn't hang up immediately, or tell me to fuck off, when I asked."

"Not a real answer." Taking a chance, Hallister reached out and touched the end of Magnus's nose with a fingertip.

Magnus shrugged with one shoulder. "The real answer won't be useful to you. I just knew."

"How?"

"I _didn’t_ miss how persistent you can be," Magnus said, wrinkling his nose when Hallister brushed his finger over it again. "Stop that. You know I hate it."

"I do. I knew it years ago, I didn’t forget it, and I know it now."

Magnus batted Hallister’s hand away. "So why do it?"

Truth tasted fresh in his mouth, like apples or lemons, a clean crispness to the words. "Because irritating you kept you with me. Your attention would drift—a book you were reading, a new casting, whatever cause you were into—and pissing you off brought your focus back where I wanted it."

"On you."

Hallister sighed. "I’m needy, greedy, and a bad, bad man. This is news? No."

Magnus's eyes were soft on his. "Not bad. Not under the surface, at least. If I'd ever believed that, I wouldn't have been with you."

"Oh, so you're psychic along with everything else? You can see inside me?" Hallister was teasing, but also curious to hear what Magnus would say.

"Into your heart? Absolutely." Magnus touched Hallister's lower lip, and Hallister told himself it was time to harden his apparently transparent heart, because if he didn't, he was in for a world of trouble.

Unless Jannes destroyed it, of course, in which case there wouldn't be enough time to justify worrying about it.

"I don't know if I can do this again," he said anyway. It was the truth.

Magnus didn't ask what he was talking about, which would have given him an easy out, a simple way to make some excuse, even though he'd never been any good at that, and Hallister, to his surprise, found he was grateful for it. "We don't have to."

"I think I want to."

"But you're scared."

"Yeah. Aren't you?"

"Terrified," Magnus agreed, and moved closer to kiss him.


End file.
